Two separate artists asked me to review tracks this month unbeknown to each other - or at least that's their story Both are members of a new collaborative effort that is anything but the usual suspects. Matter of fact, there are some distinctly unusual suspects at work here and a brief rundown of the characters involved is revealing. TAL is supervised by arch-experimentalist Richard Dunlap so you can already surmise that this is no ordinary grouping. There are eight tracks on the band's site; all by different collaborators.

The roll call goes something like this: Jim (of Jim-n-Lisa), Marcus (aka Big Ship), Refrag, Billy Shaw Jopy, and I'm fairly sure that Thomas J (aka Station For Imitation, Men From San Deigo) is going to be the next name up... Obviously, then, not your normal dish of aural soup. I'm taking the Jim-n-Lisa collaboration and Big Ship's effort because out of all the artists mentioned, it's these two artists whose work interests me the most. Awaken To The Dream is initial musical base from Richard Dunlap with Jim adding guitars, lead synth, some perc and mixing/mastering. What comes out the other end is a dense musical brew that is extremely rock influenced - so much so that I hear some very sharply defined echo's of Jimi Hendrix in the setup and flow of the guitar leads. It is, it goes without saying, superb and Highly Recommended.

Whereas Awaken plays to Jim's rock roots, Future Wanted A Past is exactly what you would expect from Marcus; acoustic driven guitar music with a lo-fi edge, so that - I guess - would be the idea behind TAL; allowing the artist to express themselves in their own way. Big fekkin marks for that because on this showing this is an idea that works like a bandit. I have no hesitation whatsoever about recommending either of these tracks (both totally instrumental btw) because they both work extremely well - albeit in very different ways. Future has a much more percussive feel as opposed to the psychadelic, drug hazed rock mood conjured up in Awaken. Again Richard supplied the musical base and Marcus added guitars and percussion. At last! Something experimental that is also very commercial.

Would that all collaborations were as fruitful as this one appears to be.

Excellent.

Steve Gilmore